Recently, the technical development is remarkable with respect to disk type recording and reproducing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as disk drive) for signal recording and reproducing on and from disk type recording medium (hereafter referred to as disk) such as magnetic disk, optical disk, and magneto-optical disk, and besides its mounting onto a computer as in conventional use, its application is also expanding, for example, to mobiles such as portable small-sized electronic equipment.
Accordingly, in recent disk drive, magnetic disk drive in particular, there is a strong demand for the development of disk drive which is capable of higher density recording, having impact resistance high enough to enable stable signal recording and reproducing without damage to the disk and head slider even when exposed to disturbance like impact, and is further miniaturized so that it can be mounted on portable small-sized electronic equipment.
As a conventional problem of impact resistance, when subjected to impact from outside such as disturbance, the head slider comes into collision or contact with the disk, causing wear or damage to the head slider or the recording layer of the disk, which may lead to the destruction of data or damage to the equipment.
In order to solve this problem, various techniques for realizing the vibration proofing of head slider have been proposed, and many of them are proposed in the form of an air bearing surface of desirable head slider.
However, such prior art is the result of examination with respect to vibration proofing property, and no examination has been made on a configuration that is capable of effectively enduring external impact.
Also, regarding a disk mounted on portable small-sized electronic equipment, the desirable clearance between the head slider and the disk, or the amount of flying, does not surpass 20 (nm). Further, taking into account the application to mobiles, the power consumed by the motor is reduced by decreasing the disk rotating speed, and thereby, the speed of the air flowing into the air bearing surface of the head slider is lowered.
Thus, in the prior art as described above, when inertia force is generated at the head slider due to the impact externally applied, it causes the head slider position to be changed, greatly increasing the possibility that the head slider comes into collision with the disk.